(_A pause, then enter Denham and Mrs. Tremaine._)
Constance! I left her here on the sofa, and now--Constance! She must have gone to her room--she sometimes does. Have some tea, won't you?
I don't know why I have come here, I am sure. I never meant to see this place again; and yet, here I am, like the good-natured fool I always was.
(_He places a chair for her by the table._)
It was awfully good of you to come. That's such a strange letter for Constance to have written. She asked you to come here at once, for my sake and your own?
Yes. It's a mad kind of letter. (_She sits down._)
Nothing, of course. Blanche, we have been living in hell since yesterday.
I daresay. I have not been in Paradise, I assure you. What are you going to do? (_Pours out some tea._)
(_puts in sugar_) Will she--stay with you?
(_stirring her tea_) Then I wish you joy of the _ménage_. You don't seem to have gained much by making a fool of me.
You have renewed the world for me. The mere thought of you is sunshine. Here we have always been at loggerheads with life.
Then why--? (_Sips her tea._) Bah! Upon my word, Arthur Denham, that woman has drained you of your manhood like a vampire, made you the limp coward that you are.
Not a word against Constance, or I shall hate you, Blanche. No--I am haunted by a ghost.
The ghost that came to Hamlet in the shape of his father--duty. It is a trick of my British bourgeois blood, I suppose.
What duty? To that internal Mrs. Grundy we call conscience? To the thing called Society? To the sacred bond of marriage? Her own principles are against you there. No--she holds you in some deeper way than this.
(_rising_) Is it because you love _her_ that you abandon _me_? If so, say so; and I shall understand that I am a toy goddess, nothing more.
Ah! a woman's love can blight as terribly as a man's--almost. Well, I like you none the worse for this curious spice of loyalty. It is so rare in a man.
No--not so rare. Don't let us talk any more about it now. I think you begin to understand. But where can she be? I seem to feel her presence here. (_He looks behind the screen, then thrusts it aside, showing Mrs. Denham lying dead on the couch._) Blanche! Blanche! Look here! Is she--?
(_throws himself down beside the couch and puts his finger on her wrist_) Oh my God! Dead! Dead!